Interference
by The Scree
Summary: Decided I couldn't stand to see Lyndon and Harriet left so unresolved, plus, Jake needed more storyline too. The Sue/Guy 'thing' is brought up, there is a horsewhip involved. Caroline decides she needs to find out Mac's real name.
1. Chapter 1

Sue White sighs with nostalgia as she gazes at the horse whip.

'Such a good night,' she mumbles, stroking the leather against her cheek. 'Giddy up, donkey boy. Giddy up.'

Her wistful thoughts are interrupted by a stunned looking Statham bursting through the office door.

'Oh for christ's sake, what is it?' she snaps, shoving the whip into a drawer and slamming it shut.

Statham stands at her desk, mouth opening and closing like a goldfish. There is a faint squeaking, as though he is attempting to speak, but no words form on the frantic man's tongue.

'Look, you great gibbering excuse for a man, either tell Sue your problem, or fuck off!'

Statham adjusts his tie and finally manages to find his words. 'B-b-b-Boy…Boyce!' he stammers, one finger pointing skyward in accusation.

Sue stands and prowls towards Statham, eyes narrow and hands poised like talons. She stops before him and crosses her thin arms. 'And just what has that charming young lad been up to, Dr Statham?' she purrs, her voice dangerous. 'Surely you're not suggesting you can't control a couple of ragamuffin interns?'

Statham's already furious face turns a concerning shade of red as he struggles once again with the act of conversation. 'You…you bloody! Boyce! I want him….I want him ou-ou-out!' And, without further explanation, he turns and storms from the office as abruptly as he had arrived.

Sue returns to her seat, cackling quietly. 'Another gold star for Mr Boyce, I think.'

Down at the doctors' mess, Caroline sits at the table, concetrating.

'Eeny meeny miny …no. Eeny meeny…ohhh sod it…'

'What's all the swearing about?' says Guy as he slumps down next to an evidently agitated Caroline. 'Is your thong giving you grief?' A sudden pang of buried memory as the words 'mother' and 'edam' spring to his mind. Caroline rescues him from the nightmarish recollection with a less than heartfelt slap.

'No Guy. I'm trying to make an important decision here,' she continues.

'So you're using eeny meeny…?'

Caroline blushes but continues to look affronted. 'I'm trying to figure out what to have for lunch.'

Guy chuckles. 'Oh yeah, definitely a vital decision. What are the options?'

Caroline motions towards two large blocks of chocolate on the table in front of them.

'Nice to see you're setting an example by going with the healthy option,' Guy quips, ducking as she aims another blow at him.

'It's treat day today,' she explains. 'I've been good all week, haven't even looked at a man or had any impure thoughts.'

'Oh Caroline, you're a terrible liar,' says Guy, sliding an arm around her shoulder. 'What about that dream you had?'

'Dream?'

'You know, the one with me and the pineapple and the horsewhip?'

'Guy,' she says, lowering her voice. 'Wasn't that your dream?'

Guy's face drops. He'd forgotten how he'd drunkenly told Caroline all about it earlier in the week. He prays that the name Sue hasn't been mentioned.

'Dream? More like nightmare,' he mutters. 'Anyway, what are my choices?'

'I've got white chocolate or dark chocolate. I ate the black forest one last night,' she admits guiltily.

'Well that's a simple choice. White,' says Guy, as though putting an end to the matter.

'Why?'

'What?'

'Why do you choose that one and not the dark?' persists Caroline. 'What's the matter with the dark chocolate?'

Guy's brow creases with thought. 'I'm not a racist,' he says.

'I never said you were...'

'Good, just clearing that up. Um, white chocolate. It's obviously the superior choice. Dark is so bitter and...shit.'

'Elegantly put,' Caroline smiles.

Down the hall, in the Complimentary Therapy office, Lyndon has his first appointment.

'Right,' says Jake, perched on his chair like a tall owl. 'What can I do for you?'

Lyndon shakes his head sadly. 'I'm not sure you can do anything. I'm not sure I should even be asking.'

Jake leans forward, clasping his hands at his chin. 'Well it's worth a try, don't you think?'

Sighing, Lyndon recalls the sad events of the previous week. 'Mate, I don't even know where to start. She left me. Harriet. But she's a married woman, so technically...'

'Technically? Is this a technical matter?'

'Well, no. Not really.'

'So let's forget technically,' soothes Jake. Technically he wasn't a psychiatrist either, but since their night in the bar he and Lyndon had been each other's secret keepers. That and they warned each other when Joanna was on the prowl. So Jake was determined to do what he could to drag Lyndon out of the miserable slump he was now in. 'Tell me about Harriet.'

Lyndon is silent for a minute, a small smile playing about his face as he considers her. 'She's so...she's so kind. So generous,' he begins, taking his time to make sure the words are apt. 'She has this way of speaking that just...and her laugh. She is just so refreshing. I don't understand why she's with him – her husband.'

Jake listens, pensive. He knows that it's going to take some alternative thinking to sort this one out. He was going to call in a favour from the lovely Doctor Todd.

Caroline was, meanwhile, still sitting at the mess table, tentatively pointing a finger alternately at each block. Guy had grown tired of her continued indecision and followed a rather attractive intern as she went off on her rounds with sights to add another tick on his list of staff. Caroline was unimpressed, but determined to make a decision before three o'clock came around.

'Eeny meeny miny moe! No, moe! Ohhhhh!'

'Why don't you try ip dip?' interrupts Mac, appearing through the door and swinging himself elegantly over the back of a nearby chair, landing gracefully beside an increasingly frazzled Caroline.

'Which one would you pick?' she asks, pointing out the arduous choice between dark and white chocolate.

He barely considers his options before he gives his answer. 'Easy. Dark. No competition.'

'That was far too simple,' says Caroline, studying the smirk on his face. 'Why dark? I mean, why not the sweeter, simpler option?'

'There's a lot to be said for sweet and simple, granted. But only in small amounts. I've seen the way you eat chocolate –' Caroline glares at him warningly ' – and I think if you're making that sort of commitment to a block of chocolate, you should go for the one that has more substance, the one that provides more satisfaction.'

'Are we still talking about chocolate here?' asks Caroline, eyebrow raised in suspicion.

'Of course,' Mac grins.


	2. Chapter 2

'I'm having trouble making decisions.'

'Am I supposed to care?' Sue sniffed, examining her nails and doing her best to agitate her latest in a line of complaining staff.

Caroline ignored the snide remark and continued. 'I can't seem to make up my mind about anything. Not even the most trivial little decisions. Like…like today, when I was trying to figure out which chocolate to have, you know, dark or milk. Something so simple, it…it just—'

'Oh for fuck's sake. The whole fucking hospital knows your sad little story about being torn between Mac and Guy, lady. Give it a rest. Take your decision making issues and trade them for a box of tissues and a sad dvd because no one's listening anymore. Christ.'

Caroline's mouth hangs open in silent shock at the mad woman's outburst. Attempting to hide this, she tries to appear nonchalant and, twirling her hair around her fingers, says coyly, 'You're just jealous that Mac would rather spend his time with me.'

'Jealous? _Jealous? _If anyone's jealousdear, it's you. Jealous McJealousy.'

'And just what do I have to be jealous about?' Caroline asks, a little too hurriedly. She watches as Sue's face changes from one of abject disdain to one of pure malicious delight.

'About the fact…that I, Sue White, know Mac's real, true, actual first name. And _you_,' she leans forward and pinches the end of Caroline's nose, 'don't. Ha.'

Forgetting her cool act, Caroline grasps the desk before her. 'You? But…why you?'

'You forget, my pretty little doctor,' she says, motioning towards the badge pinned to her tailored navy jacket. 'Sue White – Staff Liaison Officer. It's my job to know these things. I've got access to every teeny bit of staff info and gossip on file. I know _everything.'_

'Yes well you've got to resp—'

'_Everything_.'

'You can't just—'

'E-ver-y-thing. Now get out.'

Sue's time alone is shortly interrupted again, and she swears loudly as she hears the next complaining staff member approach her door.

'What do you want?' Sue's tone is fierce as she watches the anaesthetist sidles through her office door, his arms crossed defensively across his chest.

'Er…nothing,' he replies with the awkwardness of a lying child.

Sue is patient, even though she can see that he is up to something. This is just her sort of game. 'Then why are you here?' she asks coolly.

'Why are _you_ here?'

'This is my office, Dr Secretan.'

'Yeah, well… good point,' Guy stutters, his eyes scanning the room nervously.

'My, my. We do have some terrifyingly witty comebacks this morning.'

Guy's face betrays his mounting frustration. 'Shut up woman. I have to get you to sign this.' He hastily flashes some crumpled papers towards her, but doesn't stop searching the room with his gaze. If he had noticed the evil smirk of pleasure on Sue White's face he may have thrown something pointy at her.

'What?' she purrs, playing innocent as best a manic deviant can.

Guy thrusts the papers under her nose as he continues to study the room. 'This.'

Sue grabs the scrunched papers and examines them carefully, before looking at Guy with an exasperated grimace. 'This is just the canteen menu.'

'Yeah they told me to get you to sign it for...for your lunch order.'

'They got an anaesthetist to do that for them, did they?' Sue's smile spreads wider as she realises just what Guy is after.

'Yeah.'

'Dr Secretan.'

'What?'

'That's not why you're here is it?'

'Yes it bloody is.'

'Then why do you keep looking for it?'

'I don't know what you mean.'

'Yes you do.'

Guy's cool façade is beginning to fade under his frustration. 'No I really...Alright! I know you keep it in here!' He leans across the desk, hands supporting him just centimetres away from Sue's pouted face. 'Just tell me where it is, and we'll never talk about it again. I just have to know where you keep it. I know it's in here.'

Sue leans in slightly, bridging the distance so they are nose to nose. Neither flinches from the contact, but the veins in Guy's neck begin to strain against his skin in fury. Sue strokes his chin with her finger. 'Maybe I took it home,' she purrs. 'Framed it. Sold it on ebay.'

Guy falls backwards in defeat. 'You mad Scottish bitch,' he says. 'I'll get it back. I know you've still got it.'

'Doctor Secretan,' smiles Sue. 'I've _always _had what you want.'

Lunchtime in the hospital, and Caroline sits next to Mac with her nose screwed up and a smile on her face, laughing at a rather agitated Guy.

'It's not.'

'It is.'

'It's not!' Guy sniffs at his collar. 'It's just a bit more…floral.'

'It's perfume.' Caroline adds a triumphant hum and Mac grins, both with amusement at her little victory tune, and also at the fact that Guy is wearing perfume. Lunchtime is always an amusing affair to Mac.

'It's cologne,' Guy sulks. 'Yves is a man's name.

'Sorry, what century are you from that a designer's gender determines what they can and can't produce?' Mac chirps up, picking at his plate of pasta.

'Shut up git. Just because you wear Eau de Gingre.'

The boys continue to bicker, but Caroline catches sight of Jake, waving politely from a nearby trolley as if to ask permission to approach. She still had a soft spot for him, even after they broke up. She is adamant it has nothing to do with the shoes he bought her, or the fact that he was almost killed by a flying pocket knife while they were going out.

All too suddenly, Guy catches her line of sight and scowls. 'What are you doing here, Farfallini Man?' he snipes as Jake strides up to their lunch table. 'I thought I told you to stay away from her.'

'I thought we had established that farfallini was an inaccurate term in this case,' says Jake, hands in pockets, entirely seriously. 'Anyway, Doctor Todd, could I have a word with you?'

Caroline smiles and attempts to get up from the table, as Guy, far from subtle, grips her white coat and snarls through gritted teeth: 'Sit down!' Mac is quick to help Caroline out by grabbing the anaesthetist by the ear.

'Ow! Twat!'

Caroline sidles away from the wrestling doctors. 'What can I do for you?' she asks, trying to ignore the commotion back at the table where Guy is trying to shove a teaspoon up Mac's nose.

'I need a favour,' says Jake.

'You name it,' Caroline smiles sweetly. 'Because I need you to do something for me, too.'


End file.
